Commercial

As a longtime member of Willow Creek, renowned architect Adrian Smith was inspired to lead the development and design of the new North Shore church. Known for building award-winning buildings all over the world, including the world's tallest, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, this is the first church he's created and he has been intimately involved in the entire process from vision. AS+GG selected O'Brien Metal Inc. to custom manufacture a highly innovative custom architectural aluminum sunshade that wraps around the south facade.

The building’s elliptical shape was designed to strategically bring the experience of the outdoors inside. The building faces directly south, with a 15’ deep aluminum sunshade, custom manufactured by O'Brien Metal Inc. - a highly innovative architectural metalcraft company based in Chicago, that protects the front of the building façade from from direct sunlight.

Historical Restoration & Replication

We preserved many elements of the library's original architecture, most notably the bronze castings and authentic steel forgings inspired by legendary blacksmith Samuel Yellin's contributions to the library in the 1930s. Modern technology combined with authentic blacksmithing techniques helped hammer, contour, darken and antique hand-forged vitrine stands that hold treasures, such as the scribbled lyrics of Eleanor Rigby by John Lennon. The Charles Deering Library restoration project was awarded the Acanthus Award in Allied Arts & Craftsmanship (2013) along with the Palladio Award - Restoration & Renovation (2016).

As part of The Richard E. Driehaus Museum’s Garden Entrance Restoration project, O’Brien Metal was tasked with reproducing three new 7-ft-tall approximately 500-lb cast urns and pedestals. The O’Brien team used rubber and mother mold construction and sand casting prep to reproduce the sizable urns. Additionally, the team had to split the urn casts into six separate casts and fully weld them back together during the fabrication process. The pedestals followed a similar process.

After sand and aluminum alloy casting, the team recreated the ornate designs of the original urns and pedestals through extensive chasing, detailing, welding, and painting a marble finish on the new replicas.